paulbuzz

Haha, fair enough, experiences differ! 😁 But I'd genuinely be interested to hear what combination of non-rolled-off overdrive pedal and tweetered cab you've managed to get a decent non-fizzy overdrive from...?

After many years of experimentation, my conclusion is that, if you want a non-fizzy overdrive sound, there's one factor that's super-important; much more so than any specific type of pedal or amp, and it's this: *** At some stage later in the chain than where the overdrive is generated, you MUST get rid of pretty much all the frequencies above about 5KHz, as this is where the horrible insectoid fizz comes from. *** This is often touched on in such discussions, but I don't think is emphasised nearly enough. Also, it's not sufficient to try to do this with any normal treble/tone controls on an amplifier or pedal , because they just don't have a steep enough cutoff of the upper frequencies. So, there are various ways of achieving the necessary steep HF rolloff: 1) Old school approach: Use a cab without a tweeter (since most bass cab woofers have a frequency response that drops like a stone above ~5KHz) [ But note: if you're also sending a DI signal to a PA system, you're still left the with the problem of removing the unwanted fizzy frequencies from that signal too! ] 2) Use an overdrive pedal with a built-in speaker simulator or low-pass filter @ ~5K This would include pedals such as the Tech 21 Sansamps, VT Bass etc, amongst others. ( Bargain hint: the Joyo American Sound pedal is a clone of the Tech21 Blonde, is cheap as chips, and works great for bass despite being intended for guitar...) 3) Use a separate speaker simulator or low-pass filter after your overdrive pedal(s) There are lots of these available these days, some of which allow you to load your own Impulse Response files to get the exact frequency response you want. I've found the Mooer Radar to be a great little pedal to play with for this kind of purpose. As long as you get this vital HF rolloff sorted via some method or other, there's a very wide range of pedals that will do the kind of job you're talking about. The other thing that seems to be very helpful for overdriven sounds is a (relatively gentle) bass roll-off BEFORE the overdrive generation, compensated for by some bass boost AFTER the overdrive (or perhaps mixing in some non-overdriven signal, as lots of pedals allow you to do these days). Good luck on the never-ending quest for the perfect bass overdrive sound! 😋 (PS: the Boss ODB3 may be the worst-sounding overdrive pedal I've ever tried!) (PPS I have a Danelectro Transparent Overdrive V1 which is a clone of the Paul Cochrane Timmy, and is fantastic, but is no longer available. The Caline Pure Sky is another super-cheap Timmy clone and may therefore also be great, but I haven't actually tried one... )

Another left-hander who plays 'right-handed' here. Seems advantageous to me for some of the reasons mentioned above (including some of those that were getting ridiculed 😉 ). Additionally, it's much more likely to be possible to make temporary use of someone else's guitar/bass if the occasion demands it. Whilst I agree that people need to be free to make their own decisions about which way round they want to learn, I think it's perfectly reasonable to suggest the option of learning 'right-handed' style to left-handed beginners that don't have an immediate preference for 'left-handed' style.

I feel your pain. I have an Ashdown pedal that originally had similar polished knobs. Under most lighting conditions it was impossible to tell where they were set. I changed them ASAP. I haven't any useful advice to add, but good luck with your replacement efforts!

Oh, I should have mentioned that for this to work, the "Line select" effect block needs to be the one that's 'on-screen'!

It is possible to use the stomp switch to bypass the entire 'chain' of effect blocks in a patch; to do this you just need to set the 'Line select' effect as the first effect block in the patch's chain. Having done this, when you're in 'play' mode (ie not the patch list), the stomp switch will bypass the whole chain as required. Hope this makes sense - I can elaborate further if needed!

I too am certainly somewhat sceptical; however, I have bought several examples of super-cheap gear that have been ridiculously good for the money (Harley Benton 250/500w 1x10 combo, Joyo American Sound pedal...), so I wouldn't write these things off out of hand. If minimum size/weight and super-low price are critical factors, these power amps seem like they could well be worth a punt. I'm not sure that they're very doom though - surely for that you would want a power amp to be at least 6U high and weigh the same as a small family car...?

That certainly is very cheap, and a proper bargain if it's any good. However (and at the risk of kicking off a "watts-are-watts-or-are-they?" debate), in my experience cheap amplifiers tend to be not as loud as expensive amplifiers of nominally the same wattage, so if you're tempted by this, I'd be inclined to push your budget slightly further to the next model up - apparently the same size and weight: https://www.bax-shop.co.uk/amplifiers/devine-d-600-class-d-amplifier-2x-540-w If you go for one of these, do let us know how you get on with it!

Yet another GAS-able product from Tech21 - good work! But I do find myself a bit dubious about the physical form of this, and many of their other recent products (the Steve Harris, the dUg, the Flyrigs etc). Specifically, the control knobs look awfully flimsy - like they might snap off if a drummer glanced sternly at them. Any owners of any of these products care to comment on their sturdiness...?

I also have the 1-spot meter and have found it to be extremely useful, largely for the same reasons mentioned by McNach. Very quick, easy and convenient to use. One small caution: When measuring the power consumption of a pedal, I have found that you need to ensure that its audio input and output sockets aren't connected to other pedals. This can throw the 1-spot meter reading out, for reasons that are well beyond my technical understanding! Very often, power consumption figures stated by pedal manufacturers are quite inaccurate, or, alternatively, reflect the output current capability of the included power adaptor, rather than the power consumption of the pedal. The Stinkfoot power list as mentioned by jrixn above is also very useful, but, as itu notes, seems to not be kept very up to date these days. I too contributed some measured figures for which I received an acknowledgement, but which haven't been added to his list. A shame, as it's a very useful resource.

... and also has a separate crappy wallwart thing. Ugh! 🤮

Interesting, and somewhat surprising (to me at least!), since Barefaced do specifically compare the accuracy of the BB2 to that of a studio monitor, which would very much imply neutrality! Mind you, different people's subjective opinions of speakers, even of 'neutral' studio monitors, do seem to vary wildly! 😀 In what ways did you find the BB2 not to be neutral?

Ok, I'll have a final stab at it! 😀 Your original question was "Is FRFR just a buzzword?" I would say that it IS a buzzword, in that it's bit of terminology that's only recently come into use, and is currently popular in marketing bass and guitar gear. Equipment that broadly matches the definition has been around for a long time, as the requirements are very similar to those that have always been needed for PA and acoustic instrument amplification. Essentially, if you were to play some finished pre-recorded music through this type of equipment, the music would still sound pretty much like it's supposed to. So while equipment with these characteristics has been around for a long time, nobody was calling it "FRFR" - that's a recent trend, ie it's a buzzword. However, it's not JUST a buzzword, because it actually means something specific in the context of electric guitar/bass amplification, which is a distinctly different approach to how amplifying these instruments has generally been done in the past. Since these instruments don't actually HAVE a 'natural' sound, you can amplify them any way you like as long as you like the result. The traditional approach to amplifying them (because it was easier) was to produce amplifiers/speakers for which you didn't worry too much about the frequency response, levels of distortion etc as long as users agreed that the end result was satisfactory. Indeed, lots of the gear used to produce what we now think of as 'classic' guitar/bass sounds was simply atrocious if viewed from the standpoint of technical accuracy - high levels of distortion, severely curtailed or wildly unbalanced frequency responses etc - but those technical flaws came to be regarded as desirable or essential elements of the guitar/bass sounds that people liked. More recently, it's become much more possible to reproduce these 'desirable flaws' of traditional guitar/bass gear accurately and in a controllable manner entirely within electronic circuitry (not going to start an analogue/digital debate here!). Having done so, what we then want is simply to amplify the result as accurately as possible. Handily, the right equipment for this then becomes very similar to what's already being used for PA. Attaching the term "FRFR" to this approach describes the difference between this strategy and the one traditionally used in the sphere of guitar/bass amplification. This seems to me to be a useful and meaningful distinction, and hence I would say that FRFR is not JUST a buzzword, even though it is one. Apologies for the massive wall of text - hope there may be something in it you find helpful or enlightening! Quite possibly not though! 😁

Because the goal can never be met - there's no such thing as a perfect speaker. Speaker design (like many other kinds of design) is a series of compromises (some technical, some financial etc) and the final product can never be more than a "best-line-of-fit" to the design goals relative to the compromises chosen. So 'flat', for a speaker, is a description of the type of speaker the manufacturer was aiming at, rather than specifications of the finished product. The response of 'FRFR' speakers used for bass or guitar is imperfect, just like the response of all other speakers, whether they are for PA, pro studio monitoring, domestic hifi or whatever.

The point is that a full-range flat response is the design goal for this gear, and that this distinguishes this equipment from traditional bass (or guitar) gear, which doesn't attempt to be linear. Indeed, the non-linearities of traditional gear were a vital part of creating the instrument sounds that we know and love. Using FRFR gear as the last part of the chain in instrument amplification represents a definitively different approach: create the non-linearities (distortion, EQ, simulation of traditional cabs) earlier in the chain, and then afterwards amplify this as accurately as possible. This mirrors the approach that's been used in PA systems for ages now. So no, in my view FRFR is not just a buzzword; it's a quite separate approach to getting the sounds you want out of instrument amplification.

Nice story about the lessons! I know several people who had dealings with Paul in his other role as MU rep for the south west, and confirmed his reputation as a really nice guy. Great Rick sound, as you say, on The Black Album, and also on the Friday 13th EP. My only interaction with him was when my band supported Sensible's band (with PG on bass) at a local club. I confirmed the fact that I should never try to speak to any musical heroes when my attempt at conversation came out as "Uhbubub! Buhbub ububub buhbuhbuh uhbubuh"... 😩

Obviously lots of mentions here for JJ (and with good reason!) but it's nice to see a couple of mentions for Paul Gray too, who doesn't normally seem to get much attention. Playing along with The Black Album was a big part of my early learning experience. And his predecessor in the Damned, Algy Ward, who I stood directly in front of at my second gig ever, crushed and in a storm of flying gob, admiring his Precision bass. Also various others that made chunky prominent riffs with biting bass sounds a big part of the music of that time - Foxton, Ali McMordie of SLF, Barry Adamson of Magazine - and for a wild card, how about Steve Smith of The Vapors?

The straight ones now have an extra rubber jacket for additional shock protection, but the right-angled ones still don't have this (more tricky to incorporate it into the design, I imagine) and so are more vulnerable.

They are good, but a word of warning: don't drop them on a hard floor - the reed switches inside need to be treated with a degree of respect...

Actually, looking up info about the SY-300, it appears that even though it's midi-equipped, it too doesn't transmit note on/off information! So as Quatschmacher suggests, maybe this is a trickier thing to implement than we might think... 🤔

Ok, well maybe! I'd be a bit surprised if this really added much additional complexity, although I admit I'm not qualified to insist either way with any authority! 😁

The point is that it's being suggested that the SY-1 already contains pitch-to-synth conversion that's superior to pretty much anything else available (I believe the word 'flawless' was used, no?). If true, this is a non-trivial achievement and it would be great to be able to make use of this functionality to trigger other synths; a facility which could (possibly!) be included with virtually no additional production costs. If midi output was available from the SY-1, you could use it to trigger any of the enormous number of available synths and modules that do have preset memory slots. Adding memory presets to the SY-1, although technically simple, would require a more complicated user interface with more controls, and hence probably a larger case, and suddenly we're back at the SY-300. It's available, but costs a lot more!

1) It would be an effective, low-cost way to be able to record midi information into a DAW from a guitar or bass, allowing later editing and selection of different sounds. 2) In a live context, you could use the sounds from any available midi synth module (Minimoog sounds from the Behringer clone, anyone?) It just seems like, at Boss's end, the additional expense would be essentially the cost of a mini-usb socket. However, I'm happy to admit that it seems a little churlish to respond to a fantastic new bit of gear by going "Waah, why can't I have this additional stuff as well?" 😋

You make a selection of fair points, not least that we should perhaps try not to immediately start moaning about what's not provided in some new bit of gear! However, I certainly wouldn't be too disheartened by a potential 5ms delay. Since sound travels at roughly 1 foot per millisecond, a 5ms delay is equivalent to playing whilst standing 5 feet from your amp, and I don't think too many of us find that unbearable...?!

Don't think so. Were you a student there at that point? I was still in 6th form in school. Back on topic, I like your idea that it would be nice if the SY-1's highly touted polyphonic pitch-detection abilities were available via MIDI for external use. Seems like perhaps Boss missed a trick in not including a mini-USB socket that could have made this possible? ( Never bleedin' satisfied, are we! 🙄 )